A new Senate bill has been placed on the Connecticut Children’s Committee agenda scheduled for hearing on February 14. National Home Legal Defense (NHELD) offers more information about this bill in the organization’s new Bulletin - More CT Proposed Legislation Regarding Children’s Mental Health Assessment.

The new bill, SB 169, does not contain language specifiying homeschoolers in this mental health assessment proposal. SB 374 did include homeschoolers in the proposed mental health assessments at 12, 14 and 17 years of age. From the NHELD Bulletin and Deborah Stevenson pertaining to the new SB 169:

This bill is before the Children’s Committee. It apparently was placed on the agenda of a committee meeting, and it has been scheduled for a public hearing on February 14, 2013. While at first glance, it sounds as though Senate Bill 169 purports to do the same thing as Senate Bill 374, it is extremely important not to jump to conclusions. Legally speaking, one needs to review the exact language in any bill to determine its true effect.
For example, Bill 169 does not include the word “homeschool” at all. Therefore, as it stands right now, based on the plain language of the bill, this bill has no direct effect on parents who homeschool their children. In fact, Bill 169 says that the statutes are to be amended to require the assessments. It does not even specify when those statutes are to be amended, or in what manner. To be sure, there are many arguments that can be made that the bill, as it is written now, should not be adopted. But it would not be accurate to say that, at this time, this bill directly affects the rights of homeschooling parents.

There are many stages in the life of any bill. The chairmen of each committee may change the language in the bill before it gets voted on, before or after a public hearing takes place on the bill. The public hearing on Bill 169 is scheduled to take place on February 14. If anyone wants to comment on the bill, they are certainly free to do so. But, NHELD suggests that those who do comment on it be very careful not to allege that this bill is a direct threat against homeschooling. If we approach the legislature as homeschoolers, it is most important that we speak with accuracy and intelligence. Remember that the key is to persuade. Appearing to react to something that is not actually contained in a bill will not achieve your goal. It may have the opposite effect and may even make legislators disregard your opinion.

After just a few months of college – in which he enrolled after spending his middle and high school years unschooling – Dale J. Stephens, 19, left school. Based on his conviction that college is not necessary for success and fulfillment, he founded an organization called UnCollege, which promotes ways that young people can “hack their education” by finding individualized paths to self-directed learning. A Thiel fellowship recipient, he is currently writing a book for Penguin called Hacking Your Education and traveling extensively on speaking engagements.

In a guest post for The New York Times, Mr. Stephens explains his belief that any student at any level, even those in traditional education environments, can take charge of their learning:

“Why did I make trouble? Going along with the program seems pretty sweet. I could have written papers, skipped class and partied until dawn. After four years as a college student, I would have had many friends, a good job and letters after my name. But I left college because I realized I couldn’t rely on a university to give me an education.”

An article in the National Review Online titled All about Sharron Angle, subtitled The background of the woman who’s taking on Harry Reid, explains the basics about who she is and why homeschoolers should be interested: “Angle, Nevada’s GOP Senate nominee, plans to topple the Senate majority leader [Sen. Harry Reid] come November.” Reading on, she talks about when her young son “failed kindergarten.” She explains further:

“After he failed kindergarten, I put him back in for that second year and he was completely demoralized,” Angle explains. “What I had was a six-year-old dropout. I knew that I needed to do something different for this kid, to kind of put him back on his wheels and get him started again. I decided to homeschool him.” As a trained teacher, Angle thought she could provide her son with a better environment, one where he wasn’t called a “flunker” or “too slow” by his classmates at the local public school. So Angle, a Southern Baptist, started what she calls an “exempt Christian school” for likeminded families, a homeschool group for parents in Winnemucca, Nev.

When friends of Sharron’s ran afoul of the law her point of view changed:

“A judge said, ‘I know it’s the law that you can homeschool in Nevada, but the law should be that you can’t, unless you live more than 50 miles away from the nearest school,’” Angle says, shaking her head at the memory. “At that point, I realized that the government had interfered with my family. It was kind of like a mother bear and her cubs: Don’t get between me and my cubs, or you’ve got trouble.”

Sharron worked for a new homeschooling law in Nevada, spent ten years raising and homeschooling her sons, served on her county school board and then was elected assemblywoman, spending most of her four terms on the education committee.

Just before leaving the state legislature in 2007, Angle submitted various drafts of homeschool-freedom laws. Out of office, she paid a small fee to be a citizen lobbyist and helped shepherd one to passage. For her, it was a crowning career achievement, making it easier for parents to choose to homeschool while eliminating the requirement for homeschoolers to provide “equivalent instruction” to that in the public schools. It also boosted the privacy rights of homeschooling parents.

Now Sharron Angle’s story from the National Review Online has been picked up by The Atlantic: She’s running for Reid’s Senate seat, and one of her policy positions is that she wants to do away with the Department of Education:

“I’ve seen government from many sides,” Angle says, smiling. “Legislator, school board, citizen in the initiative process. I have a multifaceted background in education. I’ve done public-school teaching, private school, homeschooling, and tutoring for juvenile justice. I’ve taught adults at community college.” So when she says that she wants to dump the entire Department of Education, she comes across as a warm grandma who’s fought the beast, knows it, and detests it, not as some anti-government demagogue. “Look, the Department of Education is a policy machine that sends down one-size-fits-all rules that fit no one,” Angle says. “Education works best when you have all of the stakeholders involved and working toward the same commitment. That happens best at the local level.”

In a poorly spelled article (See: What’s in a Name HEM May-June 2010) on the Wenatchee World’s site (WA) the concern with blurring the lines between homeschooling and public schooling-at-home comes into clear focus:

Home-school definition, identity blurs with new programs

There’s more than one way to learn at home, but not all of it is home school.

Home school families say they’re trying to make that distinction clear as more students flock to alternative programs — online schools or school-sponsored programs where students stay at home.

The worry is that if these public school programs are widely accepted as home school, then independent home school will be assimilated under government control. They see the blurring of the lines as a threat to their independence.

The difference is who is ultimately responsible for the child’s education: The parent, or the state.

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“When public schools, ALE [Alternative Learning Experience] administrators and parents call what they do home schooling and home-schoolers don’t respectfully speak up about the difference, we allow that redefining, graying and ongoing lack of distiction between public school and home schooling,” she [Janice Hedin] said. “Ultimately home-schooling will only be allowed through government home-at-school programs.”

Beyond the distinctiveness issue, of great interest:

T[he] issue came to a head in February when the House Ways and Means Committee proposed cutting all funding to elementary ALE programs, including online school, kindergarten to sixth grade.

Rep. Pat Sullivan, D-Covington, said the proposal was based on a 2004 study that said most ALE students would home school if their program were cut. State education officials say they do not know how many current ALE students came from a home-school background.